Agents: Bodhidharmazan II
by TheRedPony
Summary: Part II of Bodhidharmazan.
1. Parts II & II

  
**Title: **Bodhidharmazan 2 parts, I and II

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Author: TheRedPony a.k.a. Uber Agent Zane

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Rating: PG

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Disclaimer: 

Matrix universe and associated characters: Wachowski brothers. 

Agents universe: co-owned by Stormhawk and Overlord Mordax. 

I own only my ideas and my self. 

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Word Count: 7392

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Summary: Zane is a new recruit. He's not the particularly skilled at any thing but his dagger, which he wields with precision. Agent Brown tries to train the young recruit and gets more then he bargained for. 

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Notes: Yes this story is self insertion. It started as innocent fun on the Agents The Series message board. Thank you to stormy, for letting me play in your sandbox and all your support. Thank you to all my friends *cough underlings* at ATS. I could never be Uber with out you *laughs evilly*. Your help and support has been vital. 

This is a slash based story, but the rating if for violence only. Sequel is now in the works.

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Please read and Review.

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"When illusion spin her net  
I'm never where I want to be  
And liberty she pirouette  
When I think that I am free  
Watched by empty silhouettes  
Who close their eyes but still can see  
No one taught them etiquette  
So I will show another me…"

~** Peter Gabriel**

***

Zane opened the email on his laptop. It was full of typical bureaucratic crap, official notices of schedule changes, rule policies, what recruits were and weren't allowed to do, stuff like that. He erased them with out mercy, until he came to the recruit run newsletter that came out once a week.

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'Recruit Bethan Seren was reviled last night as the green hunter ' 

He read on to the article _'Recruit Bethan Seren, formally the Green Hunter SS, is now the first of the 3 hunters to be identified.' _The story went on to a rambling account of the girl's life, and her reactions to being a hunter. He skipped over this he didn't need to read it. He was friendly enough with Bethan and had trained with her several times over the last week. He fought her in the gym, and then fought her as the Green Hunter. It had been he who had identified and tagged her. She gave herself away in the fight with out knowing it. 

He scanned the page and his eyes found a story that did interest him however.

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'Three more recruits sent to the medical ward after being attacked by the Red Hunter GJ. Gentle Joe, as he has been nicked named by the recruits, has sent several there with the hostility in his attacks. The record shows him as the cause to many major bruises and dislocations. Recruit Lauren Kuffler, who is an assistant in the medical ward has this to say, "There is no excuse for such open and brutal attacks. Sure we can patch them up but we're afraid to walk in the halls after six. That's no state to be in. I'm just grateful that the Blue hunter is so much more noble." 

Zane hissed, it wasn't that he was trying to hurt the recruits, its just when he struck, all his anger and focus poured into his hands and his legs as he dove at them. The only reason that the Blue hunter did not hurt any one was the fact that he did not dive at the recruits from the ceiling like Zane did. He read on.

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"So far the Red Hunter has not broken any bones or caused internal bleeding to any recruits. Until that time he will not be replaced," said Agent Mimosa. The story continued on with interviews from those attacked, and speculations as to who could be the Red Hunter. 

He had two rules in the game that he followed no mater what. He never attacked if surprise was not on his side, and he never faced the Blue, or The Blue Hunter BK as he was formally known. Zane had been readying for an attack on a lone recruit he recognized as Teddy. He was about to jump when Teddy was attacked by a man with a blue band on his arm, the Blue Hunter. Zane instead had watched the fight closely. He had immediately put the Blue Hunter on his do not ever face list. He was fast, fast enough to defeat him, Zane had realized, and defeat was not an option. He could never fail.

He deleted the newsletter and closed up the laptop. He was suppose to be resting, Brown ordered him to rest while he was not on duty, and he hadn't slept well in days, not since the hunt started. He did not have to do everything the bastard ordered him to do. 

The thought caught Zane by surprise; he had never though of Taizan like that, never wanted to. He ran his hands through his hair. The lack of sleep was finally catching up. He wanted to sleep, but when he did he felt the arms of a strong faceless man holding him. He didn't have to look to know who the one he dreamed about was. He knew, though he did not want to know. How would he be when Brown finally called on him to aid in a rebel or exile chase. He would be a mess around the Agent. He would fail. 

He frowned and quickly downed the last of the green tea he had been drinking. No sense in worrying about sleep now, he was surviving just fine on really strong tea and meditation. He knew about Buddhist monks who could go weeks with out sleep with only meditation. He had not tried anything so extreme before. He certainly wasn't thriving on it. But he was surviving and that was what mattered. 

He had been going about his training with a powerful vengeance and had had managed to destroy the common gym from top to bottom at least ten times. He chuckled softy to him self, glad that he could find some humor in life these days. He had been working with the Katana with a very skilled recruit named Vincent Greer, or Greer as everyone called him. He was amazingly fast with the blade and his agility with it could match Zane with his dagger.

Greer had shown him a bit with the sword and he had shown Greer a bit with the dagger, and in the end they had spared, each with their own respective weapons. He had found that the stiletto against the long thin Asian sword was an invigorating match. They played of the weakness of each other and for the first time in many years Zane felt he had actually had a proper spar with someone. 

He rather liked Greer but his patience for most of the recruits was slim to none. He had become so cross with Recruit Anne the other day that he thought she was going to cry. Its not that he meant it to be cruel, he was just short on patience at the moment. She mumbled something about being just like "his keeper" before she left. He was puzzled but chose to ignore the comment at the time. Now it was back and edged at the back of his mind. Something was not right he just wasn't sure what. 

He changed from his meditation robes to his suit, minus the jacket. He carefully lashed his dagger to his arm and set to each cord and knot as if it was art. He could do the actions blind but this was in its self like a ritual for him. A sort of mental preparation for the day, the fight, that lay ahead. After he was satisfied that it was perfect he donned his jacket and walked to the door. He was about to open it when he heard a knock. He was not expecting any one so he opened the door cautiously with a healthy dose of trepidation. There was one person he was and was not eager to see.

His heart skipped a beat seeing a black suit as the door opened, became more panicked as he saw broad shoulders and then steadied as he remembered that everyone here wore a suit. Opening the door all the way he smiled seeing that it was Greer who stood in the doorway. 

"Hey Seiko" he had taken to calling the friendly recruit that; the word meant 'Star Reflecting on the Lake'. He wasn't sure why but he knew that it fit Greer. "Sorry you caught me at a bit of an off moment." 

"Don't worry about it Zane. Can I come in?"

"Oh sure." He stepped aside and allowed the long dark haired recruit to enter. 

"Were you just leaving?"

"Yes but I had no were important to go to. Please take a seat." He motioned to the red velvet couch. 

"Wow, can I hire you to do my rooms? This is pretty nice."

"Thank you Seiko. Can I get you any thing?"

"I'm fine. But Agent Mimosa sent me to come see you."

"You're here to lecture me too?"

"Nope I'm here to make sure you get some air. Were going on patrol tomorrow together. Ian Cery is scheduled to come with us too."

"I have never met him before."

"I'm sure you've must have. Real pale, blond kid. He's been one of Browns recruits for five months."

Zane paled, "Did you say he's one of Browns? For five months?"

"Yeah, what of it. I though your would have had a patrol with him at sometime."

He shook his head painfully slowly. "I have never been let to go on patrol." Zane stood looking rather lost in shock. "I'm sorry Seiko, I have to go."

"That's all right, I'll see you later ok." 

Zane nodded blankly, and left the room striding quickly towards Agent Browns office. The program had some damn good explaining to do. 

***

He stood in front of the door and raised his fist to pound his anger on it. He then reconsidered; pounding on Agent Brown's door was probably on of those things that could get you shot in the head. He instead knocked primly on the door and waited. After about a minute he knocked again, and still there was no reply. 

"He's not in" Zane jumped nearly out of his skin upon hearing the voice. He wheeled around and could not help but grimace slightly when he saw Agent Smith.

"Sorry Myotai, I'm a little on edge right now."

"Even a little on edge you should not be allowing people to come up behind you without your notice."

"Ok, I'm a lot on edge. I'm ready to shoot holes in the building." 

"That would look poorly on your record," He smirked slightly. "Normally I would referring you to Agent Mimosa but as she will be gone for several hours and as I do not want you shooting holes in the halls, I am inclined to ask if you need any help. As she would say, care to talk about it?"

He ran his hands through his hair and tried to bite back his temper. He wanted to scream and it showed in his face. "Yeh, I better talk to you first, before I say something stupid to him" 

Agent Smith shifted them both to his office. "Have a seat Zane." The small recruit sat a bit abruptly in the appearing chair, and looked the very essence of someone in a huff. "Well what's wrong?"

"He lied to me."

"What do you mean?"

"He told me I was his only recruit. That his missions were usually served alone, or with the other agents. I was here for two months and I never even knew he had others." He scuffed up his hair in a nervous mannerism. "I should have known something was wrong when he forbid me to go in the common gym or eat with the other recruits. I was expected to follow him around like some sort of puppy on a leash, then get out of his sight when he tired of me."

"He forbade you from seeing the other recruits? Although, this is within his rights, its highly unorthodox."

Zane huffed to him self, and continued. "I was told to keep to my self. He was the only one I was really allowed to talk to. Sure he was cold but I wanted to be his friend. I wanted more then any thing to please him. I still do." 

"You don't spend the day training with him any more do you?"

Zane scoffed bitterly. "No, I have not even been sent on proper mission or patrol since I became a hunter. He won't let me out for anything with out a proper order. I can't even spend my free time away from the compound."

"Why is that? Has he ordered you not to leave?"

"No not in so many words, but how can I leave. I can't even sleep knowing he's out there and I can't be near." 

Agent Smith looked at him in depth, like a cat watching it's pray, deep concentration played over deeper wonder. "You have a desire to be with in the close proximity of Agent Brown. Most recruits tend to," he hesitated over the word, "avoid him."

He nodded and sighed. "Oh Myotai, I long to serve with him again. I'm useless sitting here. How can I prove to him that I am not just a waste, when I am locked up?"

Smith sat back and eyed the recruit carefully. "Am I right to think that your desire to serve with him is not purely professional?"

He sighed again. "For some one who is not human you certainly have a good insight into the human mind. I can not help what is in my heart."

"Brown is a dangerous Agent, Zane."

"He told me that I would die at his hands, if I followed my heart."

"That is a possibility." Smith's voice was deadly level. 

"Why is he like this? You're an Agent and you're not like that. Even Jones tries to be cold and aloof but he's still pretty nice underneath that. Why couldn't I loose my heart to a nice agent like him? Mimosa was a recruit, you were her friend, and Greer and Jones are good friends too."

"Why do you think that?"

"I spend eight hours a night hanging from the ceiling. I hear things. I don't understand how he can be so much crueler then the rest of you. Even Clarke, although not much to talk to is still never down-right mean."

Smith raised an eyebrow and was watching him closely. "He's a combat Agent, Zane. He was written to be cruel. In fact all the Agents were." 

"How so?"

"At first we had no emotion at all. As time passed we developed them. For many agents its something not to be proud of."

He did feel better after talking to Myotai, but his anger flared again when he thought about Brown. "Alright I can accept that, but why does he avoid me like the plague?"

"He is afraid."

"Agent Brown is not afraid of any thing."

"You say that like you know what's in his thoughts," he tapped his earpiece while giving a signature smirk. "We are more hardwired then you recruits are. He is afraid of you."

"Why would he ever be afraid of me?"

"We Agents have to learn human behavior from observation. If he sees love and friendship with you, it may lead to the same emotions with him. The problem is you are the best we have when it comes to recognizance missions. You can get in and out of anywhere and your ability to pass through walls makes you very valuable. He is obligated to train you, but he does not want to become weak."

Zane sat back as well and pondered this. Fear he could understand. It was an emotion that made sense to him; all creatures felt fear in some way or another. There was only one question. A question that had a different answer for each person, for each living thing. Does that fear give you power and leverage, or does it give your quarry drive to strike. This fear, it would make his quest for the ill-tempered Agent all the more feasible, and all the more deadly. 

Zane stood and thanked Agent Smith for his time. He stepped out into the white din of hallway. He had been so clear on what his action was going to be, but now he was a bit lost. He knew the rational behind why the powerful agent would fear him, but he did not understand it in practice. What could be so bad about emotion that Agent Brown would actually fear him? No one had ever been afraid of him before, not like this. 

He turned a corner and slammed full force into Agent Clarke. "I'm so sorry sir…" his apology was cut of as he watched the Agent stiff as a board teeter then crash to the floor. "Agent Clarke, Agent Clarke, Sir are you all right?" The facade of death was about the Agent and he stepped back quickly, fearing what was wrong. He froze for a few instances, then spun and burst into life.

If he was lucky he could find Agent Smith before he shifted out of his office. Skidding to a stop before the gray door, he slammed his fists on it. The door swung upon to reveal a rather shocked looking command agent. "Sir there is something terribly wrong with Agent Clarke, he on the floor in the hallway." He pointed down the hall in the direction that he had come from.

Smith leapt forward past Zane and bolted down the hall. 

***

The medical ward was rather crowed. Jones was scrolling code on his laptop; Smith and Mimosa were speaking in hushed and worried tones in the corner. Two medical agents were hovering around barking orders to assisting recruits and conferring every so often with Jones. Zane tried to stay out of the way. He had been ordered not to go any were. He would be questioned. All they could tell was that something was wrong with Clarke's code, but what was unknown. No agent had ever been 'sick' before. 

Brown shifted into the room and spoke briefly to Agent Smith. The two Agents turned and looked straight at him. Zane stood tall, well as tall as possible for him, and looked straight back at Brown. Worry was clear on his face, but Browns was cold and empty. 

Zane tensed as the tall Agent walked towards him; determined however, not to flinch away, he stood and faced the oncoming mountain. "Recruit, we will go to my office and discuss this." Before Zane could answer Brown had shifted then into his office. There were two chairs. Brown sat behind and cold metal desk, Zane however did not sit. This was obviously to be a very formal 'discussion' as Brown had called it, so he waited to be allowed before sitting. 

"Recruit Zane, sit." He did so and felt like a dog heeding its master. "How did you find Agent Clarke?"

"How did I find him? Or how was he when I found him, Sir?"

Brown glared at him. "Both."

"He was standing sir, in the hallway. I was heading to the Gym to train, and I rounded a corner and ran into him. He then fell over sir."

"Fell over?"

"Yes sir, like a statue. So I ran back to Smith, whom I had just been speaking too, hoping he would still be in his office."

"Why were you speaking to Agent Smith? Your are not his recruit."

"No sir, I belong to you." He met Browns eyes, and remembering Smiths words and tried to show his heart in his eyes.

Brown looked slightly uncomfortable, but he quickly hid this with a sneer and a bitter expression. "Answer the question Recruit."

"I had not intended on speaking to him. I was going to your office and ended up in his."

Brown sat up a little straighter. "Why were you going to my office? You have standing orders."

"I accepted those orders because I respected you. Then I learn you lied to me. How should I react to that? You locked me away for two months. I welcomed it, I never questioned, it was my honor to serve as yours, you told me I was your only recruit. You lied."

"I did."

"Why?"

"My job never was to protect your emotions Recruit. It has always been to do any thing in my power to make you the best at your task. You are to be the Field Division's Reconnaissance Recruit. Exiles must not know you exist."

"And you could have never told me that was the reason? You did not have to lie." 

"I suspected you were a rebel," his answer was flat and biting. 

Zane looked horrified. "Why would you think that? I will die before I betray you."

"Human vows tend to often be exaggeration. Besides, You could walk through walls, which is not something many of your kind can do. Not without long term training."

"You spent two months with me. I gave every thing for you. Do you still think I would betray you? I trust you with everything I have to give. Why can't you trust me?" Zane looked pleadingly towards the Agent. If Brown said what he dreaded, Zane would be crushed. Going on, as a recruit, as Browns recruit, would become impossible.

"I will not apologise for lying to you."

"I don't need to hear it," he knew that Brown's pride would always prevent such a thing.

"I don't think you're a rebel Zane."

It was a simple sentence, but he closed his eyes and let the Agents words wash over him. "Thank you, Sir."

Brown growled in reply. "You should have just jumped over the wall, then you would have been trained like any other recruit."

"I regret nothing. I feel blessed that I was able to spar with you. I learned so much." He hesitated before continuing. "Sir, I want to go back to training with you. I can not learn even a shadow of that on my own."

"I cannot let you come back"

"Agent Smith said you were afraid of me, of what I could do to your emotions." 

Brown would not meet his eyes but looked to the blank wall. "He had no right to tell you that."

"But he spoke the truth? Will you lie to me again? I will understand this time." 

Brown shook his head very slowly and finally met the recruits eyes. "I am hated, feared or treated with indifference by all. Programs, exiles, rebels, humans. They are all the same in that way. To defeat them, I must become hate, fear and indifference. Not you Zane, you treat me like I am a saint. You have so much patience, I don't understand, even if you do. I was written to defeat or to order, you defy both." 

Zane looked at the Agent, his smile was warm and strong like a pure sunray in the dark of winter. "I don't want to defy you."

"But you do."

"I can't change what is in my heart" 

"You told me anyone could change their heart"

"Yes, anyone who wants too."

Brown frowned in confusion. "You would peruse me even with the knowledge that I may never return any thing to you. Why live with such an unattainable goal?"

"It's hope Agent Brown. Have you ever felt hope?" Brown shook his head no. "Its amazing, in the darkest times of your life hope for something beautiful in the future will always get you through. I've had tough times before, and hope has always come through for me. It is all I have now."

"I do not know if I can hope."

"That's ok, I will hope for both of us."

"You should not be doing this."

"Please Agent Brown, I'm worthless out there. I need your help, let me come back."

"I cannot promise you any thing"

"I understand."

"Then we can fight four times a week." Zane bowed his head gracefully in thanks. "We should stay out of the way of the medical ward, and until we know what is wrong, no one is going to be allowed to leave the building. We can spar now if you want."

Zane shook his head, "I can't, Sir."

"What do you mean?" his voice bordered on freezing. 

"I have orders Sir, I am not allowed to fight any one until tomorrow."

Brown raised an eyebrow towards the recruit, with a slight sneer, "Why is that?" Zane stood and removed his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt. The entire of his abdomen with wrapped in gauze. He started to remove the bandages but Brown stopped him. "Leave it, just tell me who did this too you."

"Well sir Recruit Greer cut a seven inch gash in my stomach…"

Brown's tempered flared across his face. "He did what? He could have killed you." 

"No Sir, its not his fault." He did his best to quell the fiery Agent. "I passed through a wall into the gym. I don't believe in walls but I do believe it swords. That's why I got cut. It was my fault, if I had been training better it would not have happened." 

"I changed my mind, I want to see what he did."

Brown helped Zane gingerly unwrap the bandages and when the wound was uncovered Brown picked the small recruit up and set him on the edge of the desk so he could inspect the damage. All that was left was an angry led line were a bloody gaping wound had once been. "When did this happen?"

"About two days ago, he fights with the Katana, that's how I met him. I asked him about his blade and showed him mine."

"This is healing well, but it could be better," he was tactfully ignoring what Zane was saying. 

"I know."

Brown reached out and brushed his fingers like butterflies across the mark. Zane hissed behind his teeth and arched involuntarily into the touch. He gave Brown a scolding look. "You can't touch me like that. Not if you want me to behave." 

Brown looked confused. "I don't understand, that is not a an area defined as, erogenous, by human definitions." He did however step back and eye the recruit attentively. 

"With you every thing is, erogenous" He mimicked the Agents tone on the word. 

"Why is that?"

"Because just being with you make me happy, and when you touch me my heart races, and my skin burns." 

"I do that?" Zane nodded in reply still with a blissful half smile on his face. "Most people find my touch disturbing. The rebels find it painful." He smirked. 

Zane looked up at him, in wonder at the humor he had shown. "When can I come to spar?"

"For now, we have no missions, not until Clarke is diagnosed at the least. There will be no planing meetings, and I doubt they need me to help in the medical. I have nothing to do but stay here."

"I'm still willing to be your friend. We could stay here together."

"True, but you have to get dressed." Brown smirked at him and Zane smiled back, then slipped off the desk. 

***

He shrugged on his shirt, and slowly replaced each button. As he looked down, watching his small fingers deafly slip the white buttons into their respective loops, he heard Brown move back behind the desk. After the buttons had been meticulously done up and his shirt tucked in he reached for his dagger. It was not where he expected it to be; he had set the blade on the desk when he had removed his shirt but now it was gone. He glanced around the room, and found Agent Brown seated once again behind the desk, with a look of deep concentration on his face. He was eyeing the blade and turning it in his hands. 

Zane watched, ghost like in the far side of the desk and gazed at Brown. The silver blade danced light from the windows and washed it over the stern faced Agent. Zane held back a sigh, the light was pure and brilliant, and it seemed to cast a chaste air on features that normally held only death and hegemony. He walked closer and kneeled at the Agents feet, his face level with the blade until Brown looked from it to him. 

"This is blade is acceptably balanced." The words were quintessential Brown. The blade was perfect, it had taken five months to craft for him, from a master in Italy. The dagger had a sweet spot so fine that it seemed to float in your hand. There was no other like it in the world.

Zane smiled up at him. "I am glad you approve. Can I ask you a question?"

Brown looked down at him in an almost fatherly like gaze. "I may not answer, but you may ask." His voice was smooth and drawn out, back to his formal speaking voice.

"How much can you feel?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you feel pain?"

"Only a fraction of what humans do."

"Do you feel other things? Does the lack of pain dull your sense of touch?" 

"No, all agents have a tactile sense that is superior to humans." 

Zane stood and stepped away from the Agent and dragged the spare chair around close to him. After he sat, his leg only a few inches from Agent Brown, he spoke. "I will have to remember that." He smirked and squirmed down into the chair, legs in front of him and slightly splayed. "So what do you normally do when you aren't on duty or scaring recruits?"

"I am usually bored."

"That's surprising."

"Why?"

"I had no idea you could get bored, isnt that a rather human thing?"

Brown hissed at him, "No, its not human," he spat out bitterly. His mouth twitched in a frown. "When I was first came online I never became bored."

"So what do you do when you are bored?"

"This is an irrelevant conversation." Brown fixed Zane with a cold glare.

"Yes it is, but do you have any better ideas for what you want to talk about?"

"I was not written to have idle conversations with recruits."

"But you were not written to be bored either. I think you do a lot of things you were not written to do."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Do you know I think your perfect?" 

The question caught Brown of guard, and he huffed back, "Your over emotional"

"I know" He could not help but grin. "And you don't have enough"

Brown actually looked insulted. "I don't want any human emotions. They are a weakness"

"They are the strength that lets me stand before you. When logic fails it is emotion that calls the shots. With you logic fails me."

"What do you mean?"

"I know that you do not feel love, I question if you feel happiness, but I was drawn to you inexorably. Logic would have told me to stay away, I am glad that I did not."

"Why do you think I can not be happy?"

"Show me that you can be."

"I am happy now." 

Zane sat very still and watched the Agent, taking in his stern face and cold demeanor. "Take off your sunglasses." 

"You are in no position to order me."

"I only want to know, we humans say the eyes are the window to the soul."

"I do not have a soul."

"I think you would be surprised." Brown frowned at this comment, but removed his glasses any ways, laying them beside and slightly over Zane's dagger. 

Leaning closer, Zane looked closely at the Agents eyes, but then shook his head. "I guess your right."

"I told you I don't have a soul."

"No, I think you are happy, though you don't show it very much." Brown started to speak but Zane raised a hand to stop him. "Yes I know emotions are a weakness, but you will not convince me of that, and you have a beautiful soul"

"I kill members of your race for my job."

"So do all war heroes, it is in there, Agent Brown. One day I'll help you find your soul, I promise." 

***Part II***

Zane was up on the ceiling again. As the red hunter he spent a lot of time up here, crawling along and slipping through walls or sometimes up into the ceiling. These last few days had been easy pickings. Both Zane and his competitor officially, known as the Blue Hunter BK had rallied massive numbers of hits. Though Zane lead, his margin was slim, and he had to focus hard to hold it.

With Clarke out of commission they had no new orders and for safety, all recruits and agents were know confined to the building except for extraordinary circumstances. The recruits were edgy and irritable, and this made them careless. Zane marked another four recruits who like all the others fell unconscious and would remain that way for a few minuets. 

He tilted his head hearing a noise that should not be. It was elevator number three. The one Anderson had managed to explode when he had broken into headquarters, the only elevator that went to the roof. It was going up and Zane was already on the top floor. 

Zane scampered up the wall, and slipped through the ceiling. He shook himself up through insulation and dust, and scrambled over ductwork and water pipes. Then cautiously he lifted himself through the roof and up into the night.

The breeze was very cold in the midwinter night and bit at his skin. Zane ignored it and willed the cold away. Scanning the flat roof he saw the one who had previously occupied the elevator. It was a recruit, probably female. He could tell this was no Agent, she was too small for any of the male agents, and Koshin moved much more efficient and fluid in her steps. 

Curling his legs beneath him he moved on all fours in a spider like manner, crawling slowly sidewise, one leg or arm at a time. With one hand he drew a red pen and inched closer. He was nearly close enough to attack when the figure moved away then ran towards the edge of the building. She leapt straight across the gap between the skyscrapers and landed flatly on the other side.

Zane was startled, the building was on lock down, even as far as the roof was beyond were he knew he ought to be. Not sure what to do he contacted Agent Brown.

[…Sir, I am tracking recruit who ahs just leapt off the buildings roof. …] He projected the mental image to Brown though the com link in his ear.

[… You have permission to proceed, keep in constant contact and do not confront them. I will be informing Agent Smith of the matter. …]

[…Understood Sir. Following now. …]

He removed the pen cap from his dagger lashings and tucked the pen into the pocket of his jacket. Then he required his gun, holstered it quickly, and leapt across the chasm as well. He had never really leapt buildings before but he had jumped from one side to the other of the grand atrium and presumed this was much the same. 

Coiling slightly, he rolled on to his feet as he landed, and was silent in the bitter wind. Hunched down he ran swiftly and followed the silhouette of the girl over several more buildings.

[… Agent Smith has ordered that we cannot risk sending any others out. You must pursue on your own. …]

[… Understood sir. …]

[… Patch me a live visual feed. …] 

Zane gave his vision to Agent Brown, letting the other see what he did. From here on out every movement would be seen by both himself and by the Agent. It reminded Zane of a guardian angel, but he did not let himself smile at the pleasant thought. He remained completely focussed on his task. 

He skirted two more buildings and Brown gave him an occasional order on how to proceed. Soon they reached a dark blue building. It was tucked in the industrial area of town and was obviously a club of some sort. This was not in the normal patrol section and this fact alone made the recruits actions even more suspicious. 

She landed on the roof gracefully and Zane followed behind. Any fear he had had was now gone after jumping a good number of rooftops and receiving several pointers from Agent Brown through the earpiece. She slipped through a door on the roof, and Zane followed her down through the roof into the inner workings of the ceiling. He required the knowledge of the buildings blue prints, and using his ears followed the sound of her steps on the steel stairs into the heart of the building. 

He found her once again in the basement of the building. There were no open core walls here so he was tucked up into the bare pipes and rafters of the dimly lit room, with little fear of being discovered. 

The recruit he had been chasing stepped into the yellow lagoons of light that puddled about the floor and over a mixed mash of gun parts, computer chips and pictures of a rather large chested woman in a red dress. The light fell haphazardly across her features and Agent Brown hissed in Zane's ear.

[…Bethan Seren, one of Jones'…] the malice was clear and range like a bell in his right ear. Clearly Brown did not think well of his fellow Agents recruiting skills.

Bethan deposited a yellow envelope on the rickety old metal lab table. Scrawl like writing was inscribed on the cover but Zane could not make out what it said. He inched a bit closer and waited watching as she fidgeted, fingering with the disks and assorted soldering irons. 

Silently he dropped to the floor hidden in the darkness. He stood slowly, letting the yellow light fall in lemon and black streaks over his face outlining each feature. The contrast was stark and comic book like in its intensity. He smiled in a Cheshire grin and his teeth glittered in the dark room.

"Hello Clarice." He laughed darkly filling the room with a ranging sense of dread. Every move was calculated like masterful game of chess. He was here to strike fear in his prey. He played this game often with the recruits, but this time the game was real. 

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"I came to see what kind of rule breaking your up too."

"If you weren't so busy being Agent Assholes puppy dog, you might be able to see beyond that thick head of yours. I was sent on a mission you looser, a top secret one and you blew it." 

Zane looked back at her smirking.

"What?"

He tapped is ear piece twice. "Agent Brown is listening to a streaming feed of the conversation. There is no classified mission Recruit Seren." She paled visible and took a step back. Sensing his advantage, the short yet ferocious recruit stepped forward drawing his dagger. "You want to this the easy way or the fun way?" The female recruit's eye twitched slightly "Let's play Star-Slayer."

The girl spun around and ran towards the stairs fleeing from the basement.

[… She is getting away…] Brown sounded angry at the lack of movement on Zane's part. 

[… No she's not. I required the blueprints remember. Seal all the entrances and exits to the building. …] Zane felt a clicking in the code. [… Why do they run, Sir? …]

[… You tell me Zane; it's your species that always runs. Not mine. …] 

Zane growled to him self. Then crossed the room to where the envelope had been laid in between radio scramblers and enough black market technology to make the most level headed of hackers turn his head. On closer inspection he found that the envelope was not yellow at all, but white and only deluded to that shade by the greasy sienna hued light of the room. 

The name said 'Alpha' on the envelope. He tucked into the breast collar of his coat, then he too preceded towards the door of the room. Unlike Bethan, he did not head out the door that hung side ways on its cheep false brass hinges. He jumped and caught his fingers into the top of the door jam. Then with a bit of a wiggle and some good finger strength he pulled him self up and into the wall of the building. 

He scampered up through the floor and emerged into the first floor, shacking dust off him self. The building was an old warehouse. It had sense been emptied and anesthetized beams of moonlight fell numbly on the cement floor. The rays danced and peaked their way around the dusty pains and boarded up broken windows, only to find entrance in cracks and the through the shattered panes. 

Bethan was currently struggling to open the doors only to find each successive one sealed by bricks. 

[… Shoot her now Zane. …]

[… Sir, she could be the insider that corrupted Clarke. We should see what she knows. …]

[… I have already attempted that, she has modified her memory files to dissolve if accessed by any one but her. …]

[… There must be a way around that? …] 

[… There is. You have your blade right? …]

[… Yes sir, always. Why? …]

[… Cut it out of her. … ] His voice was cold. Inhuman. Of course its not like Brown was human any ways. 

Zane twirled the dagger once in his hand and the other recruit seemed to sense his intention. 

"So you're going to slice me up?"

"Yes, that the general idea." He closed in on her in slow but sweeping steps.

"How can you call your self human?"

Zane stopped his advance and raised one eyebrow quizzically. "What do you mean?" 

"You're fighting for the wrong side Zane. We're their slaves. Do you think any of the Agents care about us? Were just batteries, they'll toss us once were used up."

"I fight for my home, and my ideals."

"Do those ideals include killing your own kind?"

"Only when my own kind becomes a threat to my home." 

"This isn't our home. It's our jail cell." 

"You want to live below the earth, to never see the sun? I could never live like that. It's like having no hope."

"You have never seen the sun either."

"The sun that will shine at dawn is the same one that always has shone. It made be happy before I knew about the Matrix. I always thought it was beautiful and holy in its glory. I know only now that it is code. But does that made it less beautiful? There is an old Zen saying, if you call a staff a staff, you deny that it was once a tree. If you call it a tree you deny that it is now a staff. What do you propose to call it?"

"I don't need your 'effed up mind games Zane."

"You can not call it anything, because the staff does not exist at all. It is only a perception of the great void, the mater that makes up all things. I look at the Matrix in this very same light. The sun is not a sun, and the earth is not the earth. The sun and the earth are code, and nothing more. They are void, as is the state in all things in this place. All things are code, there is nothing more."

"Your wrong, were human, we're not like those programs. Were real." 

"Not in this place. When I kill you, I will only be rearranging code. You are nothing but part of the void. To cut you would be no different then slicing up an apple." He spun the silver blade again in his hand, and the anesthetic moonlight flashed across his face.

"Your sick, we're not just code. There is more to people then just our avatars in the Matrix. Brown really did a mind job on you didn't he? You're so far off the deep end you cant even tell you're drowning."

"It doesn't mater, in the Matrix I don't have to breath." He lunged forward and sliced a clean line across the fabric of the recruits suit. The tattered edges of the fabric tipped them selves in a brushed of crimson, and he heard a gasp a pain form the other. 

The recruit looked down at the red line. "What the hell!?! I never really believed them when they said you viscously attacked and killed a rebel, when they were trying to free you."

Zane contemplated defending him self. It had been self-defense, but instead he settled for simply shrugging. There was no use defending himself to some one who was going to die any ways. 

He readied him self for another lunge but was stopped by Browns voice in his ear.

[… Anderson's coming. Run, Zane. …]


	2. Parts III & IV

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Title: Bodhidharmazan 2 parts, III and IV

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Author: TheRedPony a.k.a. Uber Agent Zane

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Rating: PG-13

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Disclaimer: 

Matrix universe and associated characters: Wachowski brothers. 

Agents universe: co-owned by Stormhawk and Overlord Mordax. 

I own only my ideas and my self. 

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Word Count: 7222

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Summary: Zane is a new recruit. He's not the particularly skilled at any thing but his dagger, which he wields with precision. Agent Brown tries to train the young recruit and gets more then he bargained for. 

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Notes: " Zippy Zippy Zippy NoooOOO!"

This is a slash-based story, but the rating if for violence only. Many thanks to Star, who I have made evil to spite her!. 

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Love is like rain, you can explain it logically but nothing can describe how it feels. It can change your heart forever. It can make oceans and destroy mountains, it is gentle and life brining, and thunderous and death barring. No one can tell you that you are in love. You must know it for your self.

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Please read and Review.

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"Take these arms that were made for lovin'  
And this heart that will beat for two  
Take these eyes that were meant for watching over you  
And I've been such a long yime waiting  
For someone I call call my own  
I've been chasing the life I'm dreaming  
Now I'm home"

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~ Kylie Minogue

*** Part III*** 

^… Anderson's coming. Run, Zane. …^ He heard the biting edge of panic in the Agents voice. Brown's fear was justified. Everyone knows what Neo can do, if he gets a hold of you. The rebellion's prize bull, and they would shamelessly pit him against any fool who would stand in the way. Zane knew is chances of surviving this fight were growing slimmer by the second.   
  
He ran and as he did so, dove head long into the wall which he quickly attempted to scramble up. His hands slipped over old mossy pipes and the thick silt of dust that coated every surface inside the wall. Light was non-existent and he did not have the time to stop and feel his way around. Each placement of his hands choked the air with more dust and breathing became harder. He gave the tinniest half cough.   
  
Then he was struck, like a leaf tossed before a speeding train. Zane was slammed through the interior wall and was pinned in a heap on the cold cement floor. Above him loomed a dark silhouette. The moon showing eerily behind the figure, giving it a ghastly look, as plaster dust fell like drafts of pure snow.   
  
Perhaps, he though, he had chosen the wrong religion after all. There really was an angel of death. He blinked once clearing the impact of the floor from his eyes. His vision cleared and he saw himself, reflected in dark glasses.   
  
"Anderson," his voice was a hoarse whisper and the figure growled down at him.   
  
"This is for Eof." Blows fell like rain striking the recruit repeatedly. He felt three of his ribs crack, giving way under the mounting force of the rebel's attack on his body. Zane managed to scamper backwards towards Bethan, and then, while Neo steadied him self to advance again, he reached for the traitorous recruit.   
  
She tried to sidestep away but Zane latched on to her leg and drew his dagger so that the point touched the inside of her thigh. "I'll slice her femoral artery open. That will give you less then half an hour to find her body, extract her and stitch her up before she bleeds to death on you, and takes all the secrets she knows about the agency with her."   
  
He saw Neo pale and step back. This was obviously something the rebellion did not want. "I hope you have a damn good pilot. You're going to need it if you want to save any scrap in her head." He lifted his arm and dove the blade deep into the young girls leg, who doubled over in pain.   
  
Zane rolled out of the way and watched in satisfaction as Neo bolted to catch the falling girl, then picked her up and bounded skyward, with her in his arms. Zane stood, relatively unscathed and shook the plaster and the paint chips form his suit.   
  
He made contact with Agent Brown as he leaped form building to building . The sky was dark, no moon and no stars. The night smelled like rain, it smelled clean and new. He was safely back inside Agent headquarters in under three minuets, and rode the elevator down towards the medical ward gently probing at a few cracked ribs and otherwise generally sore spots

  
When he entered the ward Brown was there. He mumbled something about needing reports. Jones was there as well, he seemed bitingly angry over the loss of his recruit. Jones and Brown tended to skirt the edges of the room. It was a vain attempt by both of them to find out what they needed and at that same time not get within a civilized distance of each other.   
  
Brown spoke, his voice was biting but Zane let the words roll over him. Then again this was Agent Brown, all his words were biting. "You let her escape. We have seen in the past that the rebels are often able to retrieve someone in under half an hour."   
  
"He lied to them." Brown swung his head about to face Jones; Zane fancied it was like a great bull lining up his next charge.   
  
"What do you mean?"   
  
Jones looked a bit smug, though he still wilted slightly under the ominous glare of the larger agent, "Humans die in four minutes from an attack like that, not thirty."   
  
Brown turned his head and faced Zane again. He looked down at him expectantly.   
  
Zane felt a little like the air had just gotten thick and cold around him, under that strong gaze. "I did, If Neo had thought there was no hope of saving her he would not have bothered to try. I told him half an hour so that he would fly off, giving me time to get out of there. She will be dead by now I should think."   
  
Brown growled slightly, and Jones looked to be about to speak but the opening of the door to the medical ward interrupted him. Agent Mimosa stepped through and left the door half open. Zane noticed this; it was bad luck to leave a door half open.   
  
"I heard what you did Zane."   
  
"Well ma'am, it was no thirty two second plan."   
  
Mimosa narrowed her eyes but didn't say any thing for while. Zane suddenly realized he had heard Smith talk about her thirty-two second plans while he had crossed over the ceiling of his office. He didn't mean to eavesdrop, its just that some people would do well to soundproof their ceilings.   
  
He grinned sheepishly and mouthed 'I'll tell you later.' Yes half open doors were bad luck, Bethan had left the basement door half open and it had cost him three cracked ribs.   
  
He fidgeted slightly, he was eager to get back to work, but it was not to be that night. The medic told him not to do any thing too aggressive for several hours while his ribs mended. At least now that he knew about the Matrix, he could heal rather quickly, but a cracked rib still hurts.   
  
He stood after the medical Agent told him he could go, but he was not three feet from the edge of the examining table when Brown shifted the two of them to his office. He waved his hand towards an appearing chair, "Sit."   
  
Zane did so with out hesitating, and looked towards the Agent expectantly.   
  
"Your actions were… highly satisfactory."   
  
Zane smiled, "highly satisfactory is an oxymoron Agent Brown."   
  
Brown growled back at him, but Zane only smiled. "Thank your for the compliment. It means a lot, especially because I have never heard you compliment any thing."   
  
"Do not tell the others that I did."   
  
"Are you worried they might think your going all soft and human like?"   
  
Brown's glare was menacing. "Your treading on thin ice Zane."   
  
"I'm sorry sir … but isn't that a human expression?"   
  
Brown looked exasperated. "What are you doing Zane?"   
  
"Sorry sir, I was just rather touched."   
  
"About what?"   
  
"When Anderson came, you sounded almost concerned for me."   
  
Brown raised his eyebrow and snorted, while leaning back defensively in his office chair. "I wasn't."   
  
"Take your glasses off and tell me that."   
  
Brown tilted his head slightly to the side. His voice was much softer now. "We already did this once Zane. It did not lead us anywhere before."   
  
"I found out you can be happy."   
  
"I am not happy now."   
  
"You see, now that I believe. What do you feel now?"   
  
"Minor irritation," his voice was dry and laced in satirical humor.   
  
"Then there is hope for you yet." Zane winked at the Agent, then stood and crossed the office. He pressed his palms and his forehead against the cool glass of the window. The rain was etching down the side of the dark pains and looked like a kaleidoscope of diamonds. It had started sometime while they had been talking. He opened the window, and it creaked in protest like it had never been opened before. Zane let his hand drift and flutter bird-like outside the window, dancing in the rain. 

"I was so afraid. Anderson is like the black death. I thought I would never see you again Taizan."  
  
He could not see Brown's chair, but Zane heard him stand and move behind him. Zane was surprised as Brown stood close enough that he could feel the warmth of the agent body, and smell the clean sent of starched clothing and gunpowder. Brown leaned forward and captured Zane's cool wet hand in his own warm one. Slowly he drew the arm back inside the building and pulled the recruit against him in the process.   
  
Zane closed his eyes and let him self relax in the strong agent's arms. Brown stood very stiff and unyielding.   
  
"Zane, can I ask you a question?"   
  
"Anything, Taizan."   
  
"Tell me about love. How do you know if you feel love?"   
  
Zane frowned. "I am not sure how to explain it to you. Love is one of those things that you just have to know for yourself. No one can tell you you're in love."   
  
Brown paused then repeated the question. "How do you know?"   
  
He smirked, and pulled the Agents arms more strongly around him. "This is like describing a rainbow to a blind man."   
  
"I'm not blind."   
  
"No your not, but you know so little about emotions." Brown growled and tightened his arms around Zane. 

"Why this? Why now?"   
  
"What do you mean?"   
  
"Why are you holding me?"   
  
"Because I was going to close the window, but I just decided I like the rain. I never knew I liked the rain before."   
  
Zane's grin grew wider. "I love the rain, its like the whole world is being born again. It makes the city clean and the air fresh. Anything can happen when the rain falls."   
  
Brown sighed. It was a remarkably human like action. "Some are frightened of the rain."   
  
"Sure, some times it is freighting. Great storms shake buildings and uproot trees. Any one who doesn't hold the rain in high regard is foolish. You can't be reckless with rain."   
  
"Its just like rain isn't it?"   
  
Zane stood silent for a moment in pensive contemplation. After a few moments he nodded. "Yes, love is like rain. When it comes you can never stop it. You just have to give yourself too it."   
  
Brown seemed tense and let his arms slip to his side. Zane pressed his hand back against the cool glass. 

"Did you manage to retrieve any information?" 

Zane turned around to face the agent. He thought for a moment, and then smiled. "Yes actually."   
  
He walked back to the desk. Brown returned to his black and silver office chair but Zane sat crossed legged on the large desktop. He withdrew a white envelope form his jacket. 'Alpha' was scrawled on the cover.   
  
"Alpha?" Brown leaned closer to examine it.   
  
"It must have been for Neo. Alpha is the first, 'The One'," Brown nodded. Zane took out his dagger and slit the envelope open. Removing the papers he went to hand them to Brown, but before he could his face became ashen. "No, it can't be true."

***

In five minuets, Smith, Jones, and Mimosa had joined them in Brown's white and gray office. 

Smith was scowling and Jones actually looked rather frightened. The rebels were working with the exiles. Clarke was not malfunctioning, he was being hacked, and the rebels were looking for the delete command. They were not even going to try and fight the Agents, they were simply going to delete them there on the spot.

"What can be done?" Mimosa asked tentatively. 

Brown was standing near Zane and looked at her coldly. "We will destroy them." They glared at each other for a moment, then Jones spoke up. 

"Now that I know what's wrong I should be able to track were they are hacking Agent Clarke from." He didn't wait for acknowledgement, he just sat right down in Browns chair and slid the other Agent's laptop aside. His own appeared on the table and he started typing away madly at it. 

Brown looked lived from were he stood in the corner. Zane brushed his fingers against the agents arm, carefully out of site. The fiery Agent seemed tempered for now, and did not physically attack Jones, though it was easy to tell he wanted too. 

Mimosa required her self a chair and sat on the other side of the office. "How long do you think it will take Jones?"

His reply was quintessential tech and lashed with computer terms and programming language.

  
"In English?" Mimosa smirked.

"Now that I know what to look for maybe an hour."

Smith also sat down in a required chair. "We will wait then."

Brown nodded and required two chairs which he and Zane sat silently in. 

The office was silent except for the rhythmic and hurried 'tap, tap, tap' of Agent Jones' keyboard and the slow breathing of the four Agents, and the lone human. Zane sat very still, with his legs curled underneath him and his dark jacket unbuttoned. In his mind he recited rhythmic prayers and forced his mind away from the strong and tall mountain of an Agent beside him.

If the exiles managed to find how to install a delete code, all the agents would be vulnerable, he would loose Agent Brown. He finally conceded that it was impossible to keep him self from thoughts of the other, and let his mind drift back towards the agent. Brown was both his keeper and his hero; the jailer that imprisoned him behind the white walls of the agency, and the knight in shining armor, that tonight had held him when he felt weakened by fear.

It was true, he decided. His heart beat for him, and his every breath was for the thought of the his agent. He did not remember when he had started thinking of Agent Brown as 'his' agent, but he did now non the less. Zane resigned him self to this. He needed that love like night needed the morning, but he was patient and would wait until the coded stars fell from the coded sky if he had too.

He would find the way to show this love. To let Agent Brown know … know that his heart had changed. Some were inside of him, rain was falling on Zane's heart. Not a cold bitter rain any more, not the rain that he had known in the past, but warm summer rain that was pure and beautiful and felt like freedom. He could feel the crystal drops of life that were filling him with brilliant reverie. The rain had come and he would never let it stop. Yes, love was like rain.

Jones hissed form behind the chrome and oak desk and all the heads in the room turned towards him. "I found it, but we cant get in."

Smith stood from his chair, "What do you mean?"

"I found the building their hiding in, its in the warehouse district. Its firewall'ed though, some sort of viral link."

"A virus?" Smith raised his eyebrow towards Agent Jones.

"It's a worm of some sort Sir, its keyed into our source code. If any of us entered our code would be severely damaged."

Zane watched the dialog between the command agent and the tech agent. 

Mimosa spoke up. "What about recruits. Could they enter?"

Jones shook his head. "Its doubtful. They have it guarded very heavily."

Smith spoke again. "How many? Anderson?"

Jones shook his head, no again. "I am reading approximately forty to fifty exiles in the complex. No rebels however, my best guess is the fire wall disrupts their carrier code and they can not enter."

Brown glared at Jones in an caustic glance. "We can not do nothing. Some one will have to enter the building."

Jones sighed. "I know that Agent Brown, but no one can simply walk in to this place. They're operating with a laptop and have it locked in a sealed vault ion the center of the complex. Even if a recruit could get through all the guards they would still have to enter the vault room."

"Blow the building up," Brown smirked.

"Well then they would still have the technology to attack us. They would just start over. With this many exiles there is no doubt the Merovingian is behind this." 

Brown shoot a deadly glare at the other agent but did no reply.

"Agent Jones, you only need the laptop?" The four agents looked at Zane who had spoken.

"Yes recruit Zane only the laptop."

"I can get to it. I do not know if I can get out, but I am willing to try." Brown looked down at Zane, who looked back up at him. "Would you let me go sir?"

Brown sighed and nodded slowly. "I have a feeling that if I ordered you not to go, you would not bother to listen."

Zane grinned back at Brown then turned to Jones. "I will need the blue prints and as much information as you can give me."

For the next two hours Zane studied plans and diagrams for the building, modifications in the code that had been made, and uploaded the files of every exile known to work under the Merovingian into his head. It was an odd feeling, like having the memories of over a hundred people on the tip of your tongue and not quite being able to remember them. Jones assured him that this was normal and if he saw any of their faces, he would know what he needed about them. 

Agent Mimosa had left to check on Clarke and Smith had returned to his office searching for files of some such that may or may not have been relative to the mater at hand. Zane felt they had actually left to avoid Agent Brown who was looking lived in his selected corner of the room. At long last Jones said their was nothing else he could do to aid Zane.

"We should call the others back, to decide when you be going." Jones had a tentative expression and looked like he desperately didn't want to be alone any longer with Brown drilling holes in the back of his head. 

"We should go in the morning, if they are any thing like computer hackers they will be most active and alert at night."

"Good Point, it will be the morning then." Jones stood and took his laptop, heading for the door. "I will inform the others. Thank you Zane."

He shrugged. "I will do my best Agent Jones." He watched as the agent short the door with a firm snap. He smiled. Closed doors were good, they kept evil at bay. 

Zane was surprised with Browns hand closed firmly on his shoulder. "Why?"

Zane turned and placed a hand on the tall agents chest, over his coded heart. "Because I will not see you die." 

"You're doing this for me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because love is like rain. It pours in my heart and I cant stop it. I don't want to stop it." 

"You love me?"

"I do."

Brown looked suddenly very sad. "I don't think that I can feel love."

Zane returned the look. "I think I have an idea, can you shift us to my rooms?"

Brown nodded and the white office blurred into a ethereal myriad of soft colors, golds and slivers. 

***

"What is it, Zane?"

The small recruit stepped forward and reaching up, placed his warm hand on the Agents cool cheek. Brown looked to him as if asking for explanation, but he did not speak or flinch. "I promised I would help you find your soul. If die tomorrow…" 

Brown pulled away forcefully, "Don't be foolish, you will not die." He spoke swiftly and out of character.

Zane lifted his hand again and forced the Agent to face him. "If I die tomorrow, I will have broken my promise to you. I want to show you love." 

"How can you do that?"

"I will open up my self to you, show you the trust I feel, and the love I have. Please let me do this. I want to know that you have felt the extent of my love." 

"You cant do that."

"Nothing is impossible in the Matrix."

Brown frowned deeply. "You will not die." Zane only brushed his thumb over the Agents lower lip. Brown looked down at him startled. "Why did you do that?"

"Because you are beautiful."

"I don't know beauty."

"Then let me show you." 

Brown hesitated, "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"If I wasn't sure, I would not have said anything." 

Brown nodded slowly, "How do you propose to do this."

"The same way code is accessed from the mainframe, but instead of data feed from the mainframe it will come from me."

Brown looked down at him curiously. "How do you know about that?"

He shrugged. "I spend hours every night in the ceiling Taizan. I hear things"

Brown seemed sustained and said nothing further so Zane led the Agent to the couch and sat him down near the edge. He was now a foot taller then the Agent, and he smiled at the reversal in height. He sighed and reached his hand forward again, and let his palm brush against the Agents mouth and his fingers caress the strong jaw. Hesitantly Brown leaned imperceptibly into the touch, as if he was afraid any movement would break the contact. Then his eyes widened as Zane leaned in closer, until his mouth was only inches from Brown's.

"This is the only way I can show you." With those final words he leaned forward and brushed his lips to the Agents. All his barriers and walls melted away, like chalk left out in the rain, and he let his love and his trust flow like water in to the Agent. He felt Brown gasp at the contact, and Zane used this deepen the kiss slightly. Still it was innocent and chaste and Brown was still as a statue.

Only a few instances had passed but it felt like long days, and Zane withdrew and sat down on the couch breathless. Brown had not moved and still had a dazed and lost look in his eyes. The were set forward and were chilling blue. Zane waited knowing that the Agent was processing the information. After some time Brown turned and faced the recruit next to him. 

"You feel that for me?"

Zane nodded feeling suddenly very naked under the powerful and hungry gaze of the Agent. "I feel it with my every breath, and my every heartbeat."

"You are an anomaly Recruit Zane, but you are mine. You will not die tomorrow." 

Zane smiled at the possessive words. "So what do you think?"

"You taste like the rain." Brown gathered Zane up in his arms and held him gently in his lap. Zane smiled into the Agents neck and curled up against his warm chest. He was exhausted from the emotional drain the download had taken a considerable amount of energy. Though he was struggling to stay awake, he was truly happy for the first time in a very long time.

***Part IV***

The bands of cyber sunlight were prickling their way unto the satin bed in the cool green bedroom. It had spidered its way up from the foot of the bed and had then in a lurid and jealous display taken over every inch of the covers until it at last found Zane, looking small under the deep blankets. Yes the sun was jealous. For in its slumber it had missed the reason for the smile on the beings face, which it now graced, trying with all its warmth to coax confession from those features. 

Zane blinked to life, it was morning almost five and the sun was already dancing in his rooms like a coryphée twirling about in a ballet troop. He stepped from the bed and stretched lazily. He was still dressed in his suit pants but the white overskirt and his jacket were folded neatly on a chair to the side of the room and his shoes sat like paten leather solders at the foot of his bed. 

He brushed at his hopelessly wrinkled pants and finally gave up and just required them pressed and straight. He tossed his white shirt over his shoulders and hooked two of the buttons leaving the shirt hanging out and mostly undone. He holstered his gun then, grabbed his tie and the tie bar, the cuffs and earpiece, and his jacket and left the bedroom after putting on his black shoes. 

He headed down the short hall, and deposited the lot haphazardly on the dining table. 

"That is no way to treat your issued uniform." Zane nearly jumped out of his skin, then turned around to face Agent Brown, who had very satisfied smirk on his face. 

Zane smiled and ran his hand through his tussled hair. "You're still here?'

Brown nodded, "We're still on lockdown, so there was no rebels or exiles to chase." He bowed his head slightly "My office was cold."

Zane looked at him in wonder, having never known that the agent could feel cold. "Did you close the window?"

Brown shook his head and Zane laughed at the confused expression. Brown looked irritated, "I didn't want to close the window."

"So you came back here?"

"Yes."

Zane smiled and bent down to pick up his cuff links. Something seemed to catch Brown's eye and he stepped forward and grabbed Zane's arm. His other hand slid the shirt from Zane's left shoulder. Underneath his collarbone Brown's fingers where placed on a circle that rested in the upturned arch of a crescent moon. Both were in bright red.

"When did you get a tattoo Zane? I noticed it last night, but it was not their when I examined your cut before."

"I required it there."

"Why?"

He smirked and placed his hand over Brown's. "It is the Buddhist symbol of the sun and the moon. Opposites yet mirrors of each other."

Brown contemplated this, and let his fingers drift over the recruits skin. He turned and went back to the red couch and watched Zane with interest while he did up buttons and cuffs, then finished his tie and donned his jacket. He wore his earpiece and yet he let it hang unused from his collar. He had noticed Brown's was not connected either. 

Zane left for the kitchen and took out a teapot, filled it with water and required the water to a boil. He then steeped the tealeaves in the pot, and once he had pored a cup of the tempered liquid he returned to the small living area and sat next to Brown.

"I see you didn't drop the pot this time."

"Is that humor I sense from you Taizan" Brown smirked, but Zane frowned.

"What's wrong Zane?"

"When I decided to call you that I thought you could and unreachable. I don't think that's true any more."

"I'm just as deadly as the day I first saw you."

"I know that, but I have decided on a new name for you."

"Do I really need a name?"

"Yes, of course you do." He pondered for a moment. "I like Shozan, the shining mountain."

Brown signed. "You may call me any thing you want as long as it is not one of those stupid human pet names."

"What If I had decided on Snooky or Honey Bunch or something equally disgusting?"

"I would have been forced to shoot you."

Zane smiled at the callous tone in his voice. 

"Well then Shozan, we have to be in the garage in ten minuets." Zane stood and tried to walk by Brown. He was pulled down however by a strong embrace from the tall agent.

"Be careful Zane. I am not sure what all to make of the feelings you gave me last night, but I don't want to loose them, not now."

Zane brushed his lips to the Agents for only an instant then smiled. "I'll be careful. I promise." 

*** 

As soon as the pair had stepped into the hallway, the cold mask of agent and recruit had been firmly installed. The elevator ride towards the parking garage had been spent in silence, and Zane had stood the whole time to the right and slightly behind Agent Brown, showing the complete respect he had for the other. 

The parking garage was a maze of organized chaos. Zane recognized Agent Lee, from a sector to the north, and Agent's Kelly and Miller from two sectors west. In fact there was more agent humming and buzzing about the garage then Zane even knew existed. It was a veritable hive of activity and the agents were worker bees dancing and skirting around each other making last minute adjustments, final preparations and giving short precise speeches to teams of recruits, who in turn were checking their guns and making themselves ready.

Brown explained that during the night, a call had gone out to all surrounding sectors asking for aid. Mimosa had come up with the idea to coordinate a missive raid as soon as the fire wall was down. Zane had to agree, if there were fifty exiles all in one place, they would be fools not to take advantage of it.

In one corner Zane spotted Agent Mimosa, she was discussing with a large collection of command and field agents and recruits. Jones was nearly lost in mountains of computer screens and laptops, which were hooked to intricate monitoring devices. He and some seven other rather geeky looking recruits and agents were huddles around some sort of chart. It looked like circuitry plans.

Smith approached the pair. "Are you ready Zane?"

He nodded back somberly. 

As if some one had flipped a switch all the agents were instantly silent and turned as one to face him. Smith placed a hand on his shoulder and explained to him that he would be shifted into the subway system that ran beneath the exile's building. From their he would only need to get back down to the basement, shut down the fire wall generator then replace his earpiece. Once he was connected again he would be automatically shifted back here. 

Zane removed his earpiece and nodded to Smith. He tried to look and meet Agent Brown's gaze but the parking garage melted away and the dark dampness of the old subway took its place. He sighed, and then began his climb up the walls, up towards inevitability. 

***

He inched upwards, his fingers finding slight purchases on the old carved stone walls, not that he need hand holds but it was handy non the less. He shimmed himself up in to the dense coolness of the stone. He had never phased himself through something so long before, and he had to shake away the felling of his blood turning to gelatin. 

It took just under a minuet to climb from the subway and up into he cool hardness of the cement floor of the building. There he spread him self out, pressed against that coolness, letting his body come back to normal after the long hard climb. After he caught his breath, he stood and crossed the room towards the main wet wall. 

The wet wall of a building was always the easiest to climb. It was full of pipes and other things to haul your self up on. In addition they are the widest and the best insulated. The perfect way to climb up the core of a building unnoticed. Once he located this most important of channels above him, Zane climbed up into the rafters of the low basement, then higher into the walls.

The building was nineteen stories tall. Nothing remarkable, but then again his target was on the nineteenth floor. This would be a long climb. He had not only be sure he was counting to floors correctly as he rose though the building but also stay completely silent. Regardless of how well insolated these walls might be climbing pipes was still noisy work. To top all this off, he had to climb in complete darkness. 

By the time he had reached the nineteenth floor, an hour and half had passed, and he was completely exhausted and bored. Not bored like simply not having any thing to do. But one of those pound your head on the wall for sheer entertainment value sort of boredoms. He wanted to let his mind wander, wanted to recite sutras in his head. Any thing other then the slow meticulous counting he was doing now. 

As if by define intervention he felt the floor joist buttress for the roof of the nineteenth floor. He rolled his eyes in the dark, relived. Then he set out across the maze of duct works and electric lines. It was a long slow crawl weaving in and out of the ceiling joists, and in all it took him another five minuets of slow counting. 

He pined for the empty ceilings of the Agency. Amazingly when they had built the office, it had been planned to never need repaired. The building had no wiring and no water pipes. Zane though the most humorous thing was when the recruits complained about the hot water running out for showers. In fact the showers were not even connected to the boilers at all.

Seven hundred and twenty two. He stopped as he had finally reached his destination. Now would be his leap of fate. Carefully he stuck the top half of his body down into the room, and was relived to see that it was relatively dark, and the laptop sat glowing with green scrawling code dancing on its screen in the center of the room. It gave the whole space a sort of green pulse to it and it was obvious that whoever had been here was out for the night, or day, as the case happened to be. 

An old cup of coffee was cold siting next to the laptop and a neat stack of papers and notes where placed in a tan folder beside it. Zane slipped down the wall and tucked these papers into a black case. Then he closed the laptop and put that in the black case as well. This in turn zipped snuggly closed. He was amazed out how easy things had gone this far and slipped back up the wall, and into the ceiling once again. 

He swung the black carrier so that it rested behind him. They should have created some device that strapped the laptop to him, instead of having to fight with the irritable case. It was too late however, because now that he as inside the fire wall it would be impossible for him to require anything.

He crawled back through the ducting and was nearing the edge of the wet wall, when he heard voices. They made his skin crawl for some unknown reason and he froze on the spot. The words were disjointed and did not mean anything to Zane, but he recognized a pair of the speakers with sharp British accents who stood away of the rest. They seemed very familiar though he could not place them. 

He tried to move forward again but a twitching in his fingers stopped him. He watched the moving fingers with interest, then was seized with white-hot pain. The ribs Neo had broken felt like they were splintering, becoming long handfuls of needles inside his body. He gasped under the immense wave of pain. He started shaking and the laptop fell from his hand, bounded over several pipes hidden in the dark and skidded to a stop some were in front of him. The room below became dead silent.

Zane eyes grew wide as he heard the clicking of guns being primed. He scrambled forward. His hands darting about in the dark trying to find the laptop. If they shot it all his work would be for nothing. His hand flew rapidly over the services, then the first bullets whizzed past him. It created a tiny beam of light upwards but not enough for him to see. More light beams punched their was through the ceiling, then punched their way through him. He felt warm blood grow in red pools around his body, but he pushed the though aside and crawled forward.

He felt around, hand out stretched and if by a miracle he found the laptop. He shimmed forward taking a large barrage of bullets from a machine gun, and pulled the black bag to his chest. The ceiling melted below him and he let him self faze and free fall through it. He counted the floors as he fell unchecked through the building. Five, ten, fifteen, almost done, Generator. He had to take out the generator. 

He forced himself solid, then slammed full force in the basement floor. He gasped knowing that at least one of his lungs was punctured. He burbled blood from his mouth and bled out over the cool dark floor. Slowly he drew out his dagger. He had a rule - never ever throw your blade. It was suicide. Now it was it only chance. He hurled the dagger at the firewall generator. He heard it give a satisfying pop and fizzle out of life. Then he blacked out. 

***

Brown had not been pacing the garage, more like circling about and terrorizing any one he could. His face was a mask of indifference but his insides were in upheaval. Something that Zane had done. That kiss, he felt him now, felt him like he felt the code of the Mainframe. He did not now if the recruit felt the same tickling at the back of his mind, like some one was fooling with his source code, but he certainly felt it. It was like having the recruit just past his fingertips and slipping past every time he tried to grab him.

He felt the recruit, and that disturbed him. On one hand he felt enlightened like whole hallways of doors had opened up to him. In the other, he was afraid. If he let himself go, to fall into these human emotions, fall into Zane's emotions, would he be less of an agent? Could he afford to feel love? The question plagued him, it frightened him. Then thoughts of the frailty of humans began, what if he did love? Zane was human, he could die, and even if he did not die at the hands of a rebel or an exile, he would grow old and fade from existence. 

Brown set his heart in that moment. He could not afford to love the recruit. He would not let himself love the human. He would lock these emotions away, if he covered himself he would never have to face the rain. 

It was at that moment of his revelation that he felt something new. It was fear, not his fear, Zane's fear, cold glacial fear. Then pain and flashes, beams of light, voice and guns firing. Then falling. Then nothing. Brown shook where he stood, and Smith looked over at him questionably. 

"Zane is dying." He rushed the words out, and Smith looked surprised.

Jones called from across the large echoing garage. "Recruit Kembrick, has successfully removed the firewall." Before Smith could acknowledge the other Brown shifted to the buildings basement.

The air here felt like it was stretched too thin, and electricity sparked and changed the air to ether, until the room crackled with intensity. He scanned the room. The first thing he saw was the massive crackling generator. His breath caught seeing Zane's dagger wedged into the controls. He approached closer and then risking electrocution, dew the blade from its prison. Turning towards were the blade was pointing he saw a thin ribbon of liquid that was slowly making its way towards the drain that was sunk into the center of the basement. 

He followed that stream until Zane's limp form amassed in blood lay at his feet. He quickly touched the laptop and shifted it to Agent Jones, then picked the recruit up carefully and shifted in haste to the medical ward.

***

The room in the medical ward was pale and washed out looking, like even it had given all the hope it had to give. Zane looked small and pale, lying on the hospital bed. His washed out red hair matched the washed out room, and all of this matched how Agent Brown felt. Lost and washed-out. He had stood in the corner and observed as the med. Agents stitched together so many bullet holes, that he had to stop counting, to halt the unfamiliar and woozy feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. 

They hadn't needed to remove a single bullet; they had all passed through the recruit completely, the hot steel cutting his form to ribbons. Brown shuddered for the first time in his existence remembering the pools of blood. It had never seemed like such an insurmountable amount when he had killed rebels, but the blood had been in pools on the dark dingy floor of the building. Once he had picked Zane up the blood flowed over his arms and covered his suit and hands. Zane's life, his drive, his love. All of this had poured onto his hands. 

Now the dread was no longer something new and unfamiliar. It was a constant ache with each breath and it ate at him, while he paced the room. He had thought it had been bad, but news from Jones after the medical Agents had finished made the future look even bleaker. It seems that the virus had done more the damage to the recruit then they had thought possible. 

"His body is fixed, but his fundamental code has been damaged, it will take a long time to repair. He wont wake because his mind is not connected to his body, but at least we know what is wrong."

"How long until he is better?"

"Unknown, maybe days, months. I can't be sure."

"That's not acceptable, you will repair him Agent Jones," an edge of panic sounded in his voice. 

He smirked. "Is that emotion over him, I hear? He's just a recruit Agent Brown." 

Brown fixed the other agent with a look of burning contempt and aimed his gun at Jones. "Get out!" he nearly screamed and Jones left hastily realizing he had pushed to far. Once the door slammed shut he sighed and holstered his gun. He then sat down in a chair next to the bed. 

"You promised me." He let his fingertips brush the pale recruits face, then pulled his hand way sharply as if the skin burned. It was not burning he felt though it was something else. He let his hand drift down and take Zane's. He felt emotions coming from the recruit, trust and kindness, but most of all love.

He sighed, and spoke to the unconscious figure. "You were right Zane, it is like rain."


End file.
